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From
studied awe to sheer ecstacy, people have literally competed to say the
most beautiful things about the Taj Mahal. Some have admired its beauty;
others have revealed the various activities that took place here. We take
a look…
Shah Jahan's own composition in praise of the Tajis found in
Badshah Nama: "…The sight of this mansion creates sorrowing
sighs/And makes sun and moon shed tears from their eyes/In this world this
edifice has been made/ to display thereby the Creator's glory."
From the Travels in the Moghul Empire, 1670 by the French traveller
Bernier: "The Koran is continually read with apparent devotion by
certain Mullahs kept in the Mausoleum for that purpose…It is opened
with much ceremony once a year..and no Christian is admitted within , lest
its sanctity be profaned."
In 1783 the British painter Hodges says of the tomb: "it
appears like a perfect pearl on an azure ground. The effect is such I have
never experienced from any work of art."
By the time of the British conquest of India, the attitude to the Taj had
changed. The beautiful memorial had turned into a pleasure resort; in its
gardens, Englishman met their lovers. On its terrace they danced while the
mosque and the jawab were rented out to honeymooners!
Writes a then well-known British officer, Colonel Sleeman's wife:
"I cannot tell what I think. I do not know how to criticize such a
building but I can tell what I feel. I would die tomorrow to have such
another over me."
The American novelist, Bayard Taylor, wrote about the Taj: "Did
you ever build a castle in the Air? Here is one, brought downto earth and
fixed for the wonder of ages"
Lord
Curzon, the British Governor-General who is credited to have somewhat
saved the Taj from neglect, said in a speech from the terrace of the
monument: "If I had never done anything else in India, I have written
my name here, and the letters are a living joy."
The poet Rabindranath Tagore has perhaps said it best of all: "You
know Shah Jahan, life and youth, wealth and glory, they all drift away in
the current of time. You strove therefore, to perpetuate only the sorrow
of your heart…Let the splendour of diamond, pearl and ruby vanish…Only
let this one teardrop, this Taj Mahal, glisten spotlessly bright on the
cheek of time, forever and ever."